Archive for the ‘Howard Bloom’ Category

It has been about ten days since I’ve written; I just went back and looked. Last time, I was on Saba, writing when I wasn’t able to sleep. Tonight, I am back at my dining room table, floodlights on, looking out over the creek, having just returned from Coyote Flaco with Pierre, sharing chicken fajitas.

When I reached the cottage this afternoon, I felt I’d been away for a week, at least. Monday morning, I went down to DC for some meetings for the Miller Center on the Presidency and then to New York last night to have a wonderful dinner with my friends, David and Annette Fox. It’s a quarterly event; we gather at their marvelous UWS apartment, order Indian and catch up on our lives.

It is very hygge. As was the dinner party I gave last Friday night for Fayal Greene, her husband, David, Ginna and Don Moore, Lionel and Pierre. Leek soup, sautéed scallops in a brown butter sauce, and carrots in a lemony oil garlic sauce, with a baked polenta to die for, followed by a flourless chocolate cake provided by Ginna and Don, via David the baker.

It was an extraordinary evening.

And I, at least, need evenings like this to keep me sane in these extraordinary times.

On Tuesday evening, in Washington, after an early dinner with my friends Matthew and Anne, which followed drinks with my ex-partner and his now fiancé, I watched the address to Congress by our President, Donald Trump.

To the great relief of almost the entire world, he did not go off the rails and sounded presidential. It was, Tuesday night, all about the delivery. Wednesday morning people started to parse what he said. Even the conservative writers that I read, and I do read some, found a lot of flaws with the speech.

Short on specifics.

Fact checkers found a lot of fault, pointing out Trump claimed as victories some things which had been in play for a year at some corporations. Ford isn’t keeping production in the US because of Trump; they are pulling back on their Mexican plans because those plants would have built small cars and people aren’t buying them. They’re buying gas guzzlers because gas is cheapish again.

When talking with David and Annette, I said that if Trump had not held it together last night, his presidency would have begun to unravel. He would actually be President but, in reality, his claim to power would have begun collapsing. Lots of people on his side of the aisle are slightly unhinged by his behavior. McCain and Graham are frankly, I think, apoplectic.

And he held it together and while he should have been able to take a victory lap, Wednesday morning brought the revelation that Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had said in confirmation meetings he had not met with any Russians in the run-up to the election, actually had two meetings with the Russian Ambassador, one in his office on Capitol Hill.

Republicans are excusing while Democrats and some Republicans are accusing.

This is a wild ride and I’ve never seen anything like it.

Sessions has since recused himself from all investigations regarding anything Russian but there are those on both sides of the aisle who smell blood in the water.

While we were having political meltdowns, Amazon’s vaulted cloud computing world went offline yesterday for 4 hours and 17 minutes because of a typo in a command. OOPS.

It’s a little scary. 150,000 websites were affected. Amazon is the king of cloud storage and that’s a big oops for the King. I would not have wanted to be the head of that division yesterday.

And, before Tuesday’s Trump speech, we had the foll der wall of the biggest Oscar mistake in history. First “La La Land” was announced as Best Picture but it really was “Moonlight.” Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were humiliated and PwC, the accountants, were more than humiliated. They handed out a wrong envelope.

OOPS.

When it happened, I was safely in the arms of Morpheus, having strange dreams of Mike Bloomberg dating the pastor of my church, Mother Eileen.

Snap Inc. had a very successful opening on the market today; it was the biggest initial offering since Facebook and they have a rocky road to travel and they are a force to be reckoned with and it will be wonderful to see how it plays out. The next Facebook? Or the next troubled tech company, which is where Twitter is today.

It’s time for me to say goodnight.

By hygge. Regardless of your political persuasion, it will help us all get through.

As I headed north on the train, I watched mist close over the Hudson River as I drifted off to a nap after an extraordinary brunch with my friends, Mary Clare and Jim Eros, at Café Du Soleil on the Upper West Side. We laughed and giggled and ate and had a good time.

They were off to watch a flotilla of pumpkins in Central Park while I headed down to the station to head north.

It is dark now and the flood lights illuminate the creek. The ticking of my old clock is about the only sound I can hear and I am contented after a good conference in New York. Tomorrow is my meeting with my eye surgeon before the cataract operation a week from this coming Wednesday; I am weary of my blurry vision and am grateful I live in an age when repairs can be done to things like this.

A century ago, I would have been doomed to live with it if I had been so lucky to live this long. My friend, the philosopher Howard Bloom, always points out that we have doubled our life expectancy in the last hundred, hundred fifty years. A great accomplishment.

Things that would have killed us quickly have been either vanquished or we have ways of coping better than ever with what would have been life ending diseases not so very long ago.

Things like that give me some hope.

This week there were articles about robot warriors who could learn to kill using artificial intelligence, making judgments that only humans could before. While that brings to mind images from “The Terminator,” robots are being also developed to help those who are helpless and to save human lives in other ways. The Japanese are in the forefront of this because of their aging population.

Mary Clare and Jim split their time between Shepherdstown, WV and New York City. They describe themselves as the new “young old.” Both are retired and both are full of energy and life and a passion to explore the world and are an inspiration to me.

The three of us have all, to one degree or another, been tuning out the din of this the last weeks of this election cycle. It was left to me to explain the newest twist in the Clinton email drama. Both of them had missed it. All of us are confused by it and are wondering why the FBI ignored the guidance of the Justice Department to not say anything so as not to appear to be influencing the election.

But it is what it is and is another twist in this most remarkable Presidential election.

Last night a truckload of manure was dumped in the parking lot of the Democratic headquarters in Ohio. I find myself somewhere between outrage and hysterical laughter at the silliness of what is going on. Manure? In 2016?

As I cruised through the news today, I found an interview with Jerry Brotton, an English author, who has just published a book about Elizabeth I’s alliances with the Islamic world. Shunned by Catholic Europe, Elizabeth I built alliances with the Shah of Persia, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Morocco. Fascinating.

However, in this present time the US is telling the families of workers in the US Consulate in Istanbul to leave the country. This is combined with a warning to tourists to not travel there because of targeting by terror groups of Americans and other foreigners.

At the same time, the Turkish government has fired ten thousand civil servants and is crushing any media that disagrees with it.

I am saddened beyond words. Fifteen years ago I was in Turkey and fell in love with Istanbul and have wanted to return. Perhaps not or at least not now…

The old clock is ticking. I think of it as the heart of the house. I am content tonight and am living in the now. Mindfulness is what I think they call it.

The train moves south along a placid Hudson River. I am only forty minutes out of New York and as we pull into Croton Harmon, sailboats dot the river and bob lightly at anchor. I am in town for two days to see friends, shoot a pilot with Howard Bloom and then to head home. I am feeling very mellow this morning.

Relieved I know what I am going to do my first day of class, I am now plotting out the rest of the semester.

It’s been a few days since I’ve written, days that seemed more hectic than I would have expected, with more to do and with unexpected delights.

Claire and Leonard, who almost always sit in front of me in church, offered for me to come by and take vegetables and flowers from their garden. They are off for two weeks in Greece. I went over on Friday and harvested from their garden beans and squash, flowers and potatoes, luscious tomatoes, garlic and fresh rosemary. As we gathered, a light rain fell and it seemed right to be in the garden just then. For a moment I was much in touch with my body and nature. A monarch butterfly floated by and rested on a flower near where we stood. How rarely I see them so closely.

Lionel and Pierre came for the weekend which meant long, delightful dinners with a finish of cleansing vodka and a good “chin wag.” It feels peaceful in my world.

The rest of the world, not so much. IS has killed fifty plus in Yemen, a country that has seen 10,000 die in its civil war, according to the UN, a number higher than previously thought. A suicide bomber struck the Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan. 6500, sixty-five hundred, migrants have been rescued from the sea near Libya, including a pair of newborn twins. The number staggers my mind.

Venice, it appears, is being destroyed by tourism. In 65 years, the population has dwindled by two thirds and landmarks are lost to hotels. The UN may take away its status as a world heritage site.

Gene Wilder, star of one of my favorite films, “Young Frankenstein,” passed away yesterday, of complications from Alzheimer’s. It saddens me to think of his brilliance falling away, victim to the disease. Who can forget him in “The Producers?” That generation is leaving us.

Today in politics, John McCain, Marco Rubio, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz must win primaries if they are to stand in the fall for election. At this moment, while the voting goes on, all three are expected to win.

On the way to the train station, I listened to “Democracy Now” with Amy Goodman as she and others did an exegesis of the EpiPen scandal. If you somehow have missed it, EpiPen, a life saving device and drug for those with allergies, has seen its price increase 400% over the last nine years. There is a public hue and cry about the issue. One of the women on “Democracy Now” has seen her insurance co-pay for EpiPens swell from $50.00 to $300.00, a price she cannot afford.

There is going to be, I’m sure, a Congressional investigation. The woman who runs Mylan, the drug company selling EpiPen, is the daughter of a Senator from West Virginia. She is fighting the demonization of her on social media.

The train is sliding into New York, we have entered the tunnels and will soon be in Penn Station, a place called by New York’s Governor Cuomo, one of the seven levels of hell in Dante’s “Inferno.”

As I exited this “hell,” a lovely middle aged woman stood between Track’s Restaurant and McDonald’s, playing lovely classical music. I stopped and gave her a dollar for the smile she had given me as I entered the subway.

A brilliant sun is beginning to set over the Catskills as I ride north on the train.There is a great swath of sunlit river streaming straight toward the train as we crawl north.

There might be snow this weekend; a nor’easter may be storming our way though the forecast for Claverack doesn’t seem to indicate snow.It will be what it will be…

I am headed down to the city on Monday so I can sit in on the taping of Howard Bloom’s podcast, “Howard Bloom Saves The Universe.”[Available on iTunes.] Then a couple of meetings on Tuesday, a lunch on Wednesday and then I’ll race back to the country.

Easter Sunday is in front of me and I’m doing the brunch after Mass.I am beginning to think the General in me will need to come out.With moderation, of course…

While I have been doing my meetings in New York, the Belgian police have been conducting raids, which netted one of the prime suspects in last fall’s Paris attacks, Salah Abdesalam.It may be an intelligence coup.Other suspects also have been detained, some for helping him.

The EU has struck a deal with Turkey to return refugees to them while Greece, a bankrupt country, is on the verge of being a refugee prison.Would this be or not be a good time for an American to go to Greece?I love the country and would like to visit.

The Hudson is now steel grey and there is pink in the sunset.“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.”Pink?Probably good…

Mitt Romney has said he is supporting Ted Cruz.Has it come to this?

Merrick Garland made some rounds on the Hill today while the Republicans say, with absolutism, they will not consider him.Ah, love gridlock…So now that Congress in in recess the fight is going to the home front.

It’s my understanding Georgia has passed a religious freedom bill, which is interpreted by many to be anti-gay.

The NFL as in the National Football League, has said that this might impact their plans to have the Superbowl in Georgia.Unintended consequences…

The markets have finally caught up with where they were at the end of last year but more to be thought of about where the markets are.Are things good again or not?The reports in the press seem divided.

Dark has descended on the trip.We are now headed toward Hudson.Theevening progresses.When I am off the train, I’ll head to the Red Dot for a bite to eat and then home.

My bathroom is being repainted and from the pictures I’ve seen looks quite wonderful.Tomorrow I am meeting young Nick to pick up a new sink and faucet while at the same time picking out new appliances for the kitchen.

Now that I am living more at the cottage than anywhere else I would like it to be more me than it is now.

It is what we all want, our homes to represent ourselves.

Home is something I have thought about all my life, a looking for home.The cottage is the most I have ever felt at home and I am so grateful I have found that place.

The world will roar and the political battles will be fought and at the end, I will be at home, in the cottage, looking over the creek while the world plays itself out.